My final design is a tall tower with horizontal shelves, plus an unstructured open bin at the back for holding longish (up to 52”) offcuts. The front wall of the rack is tilted back 5 degrees so long sheets and boards can lean against it without falling forward. The rack is 39” wide, 24” deep, and slightly over 8 1/2’ tall (including casters). The horizontal shelves hold medium-length (up to 24”) offcuts.

i

The rack is designed to work in two positions. When stowed, its back is against the wall, and the long-offcut bin is underneath the lower wire shelf on the wall, meaning the offcuts are inaccessible. To provide access to them, the rack rolls forward so its base almost touches the sink’s legs. In its stowed position, the rack is far enough from the sink to allow my wife to use the sink like she wants.

To reduce costs, I designed the rack around a frame/skeleton of construction lumber (2x4s, some whole, others cut in half lengthwise) covered where needed with hardboard panels. I had intended to use 1/8” thick hardboard, but I ended up buying 3/16” hardboard instead, so I revised the model to reflect the use of the thicker material. In practical terms, it doesn’t matter—the 3/16“ material is more expensive and heavier, but not excessively so.

Unlike Matthew Peech’s design, which consists of two side frames joined by cross braces, mine consists of vertical assemblies (front, back, center divider, etc.) that are connected by braces and shelf assemblies.

The shelves in the rack’s main section range from 12” to 16” wide, spaced roughly 9” apart. The base for the long sheets/boards at the front is 6” wide.

The base is very beefy. I didn’t know how heavy the fully loaded rack would be, so I went overboard. The casters I ended up buying (Steelex 2554) have such wide mounting plates that I needed to widen the 2x4s on the sides of the base. My wife asked me why I beveled the ends of the base “joists.” The answer? I just liked how it looked.

Because the shelf surfaces are thin hardboard, I added two interior braces to prevent sagging.

I spent a lot of time optimizing the cut sheets to minimize lumber usage and waste. The structural members required fourteen 2x4s.

Similarly, I managed to lay out all the panels on two full-size (48” x 96”) hardboard sheets.

I decided to use pocket screws to assemble the frame, and 1 1/4” construction screws to attach the panels. I didn’t determine the pocket screw locations, opting to defer that until actual construction. (I ended up using over 250 pocket screws.)